Can't paint individual object with paint bucket

Hi, I am a balloon artist that makes HUGE balloon installations. (check out http://utahballoonguru.com). I am trying to create idea renderings for my clients and when I create the model in SketchUp, I have a problem with my balloons where I have to click on them like 20 times each in order to paint them with the paint bucket tool. I suspect it has something to do with me using groups incorrectly but intuition tells me I should be able to just click on a balloon with the paint bucket tool and change the color…

Here is a video of my problem: Sketchup Paint Bucket Help - YouTube

Thank you so much in advance for the help, I REALLY appreciate it!

Keenan

Based on your video, you need to group balloons by color, or have no groups at all - then you can paint them as you like individually.
SketchUp can’t tell what balloon you want to paint when you click on a balloon that is nested in multiple groups.

Remember, the Paint Bucket tool should be used to paint surfaces. This means you will need to burrow down through groups to the geometry to apply colors, or explode a few groups out to apply colors. Initially, in the video, you are clicking on geometry that is 4 - 5 containers deep.

It can just as well be used to paint groups or components. If everything in a group/component should be the same color, I’d very much recommend to apply the color to the object as a whole, to avoid duplicating the info throughout the model, and have a cleaner, more organized document.

However in this case it seems there are a few redundant nesting levels. I’d explode the outer containers to have all balloons in the same drawing context.

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Oh interesting. Is there a way I can destroy the current groupings and then start over from there? One issue I have is sometimes the clients want the colors blocked like that but other times they want the balloons intermixed. Maybe I just need to make a template for each option.

Usually how I do it is I make a cluster of like 10 balloons, then I keep replicating that cluster. I guess that is what creates those groups right?

Sorry I am a total novice… how do I explode the outer containers? :slight_smile:

Just right click and select explode :slight_smile: .

You have a gift my friend! What a genius! :smiley: I have to say though… this is the first time in my entire balloon art career that someone told me to “explode” something and it was actually helpful… ha…

That fixed my problem.

Have a wonderful day!

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xD xD xD

Some programs call it “Ungroup”, but I guess that term wouldn’t suit SketchUp as it can be done on both groups and components (uncomponent?).

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